


A Sky So Unfamiliar

by mythomagicallydelicious



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: (Julia and Raven's Roost), Angst, Angus McDonald mentioned, Gen, Lup - Freeform, Past Character Death, Stars, angus and lup get mentioned here bc they're not super involved but kind of are?, lucretia forgetting to erase stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-20 18:24:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17027721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mythomagicallydelicious/pseuds/mythomagicallydelicious
Summary: Lucretia forgot to erase the stars.





	A Sky So Unfamiliar

On clear nights, Merle will wander around the outer domes, planting himself in the grass and staring up at the sky, watching the stars twinkle and shift and shoot.

He searches for constellations he loves, connections that don’t seem to be quite there. His favorite constellation is Plum’s Tree, and he searches the sky for where it should be, east of the brightest star in the sky, the highest branch a connection to the Fate Thread, another constellation that weaves its way through the heavens.

He thinks he almost sees it, but when he looks again it’s gone.

Maybe he needs to clean his glasses. Maybe he needs to get better eyes.

Merle lays out in the grass of the fake moon and imagines he’s staring at a fake sky, and that’s why nothing is familiar. His thoughts fuzz over and he falls to sleep, dreaming of learning the constellations peaking through the Pan Enclave’s protective branches.

-

Julia taught him the constellations. He made up new ones and crazy stories for each set he pretended to see in the sky. Julia laughed at his imagination, his fanciful stories. His favorite constellation was the Hammer’s Flower, what he claimed was shaped like a mallet but truly had petals branching off, the brightest star in the sky at its clear center.

Julia said she loved how he made up stars just for her. So Magnus kept doing it. Each story he told felt more real to him than the crazy constellations and names she pointed out, anyway.

After Raven’s Roost was done burning, after the smoke cleared from the wreckage, he followed its trail to the skies, falling to his knees, tears blurring his vision. And for the first time in years through his blurry sight he thought he could really truly see the constellations he used to make up for her. As if all he’d needed was clouded sight to see what was right in front of him.

The ones she taught him fell away, his more outlandish stories forgotten as well.

All he saw at night when he looked to the heavens after Raven’s Roost burned was the glitter in Julia’s eyes as he made her laugh, head thrown back and staring up at where the Hammer’s Flower was supposed to be. All he saw in the skies were his memories of their time together, not a single constellation making sense anymore.

-

Taako didn’t like stargazing. Stars and shit were cool, whatever, but he had bigger fish to fry. Like figuring out where his next meal was coming from and planning around his spell-slots to make it happen. 

At some point he’d found that doing some minor illusion bullshit was a good way to win a crowd, win a few copper, a good place to steal a few coin purses while the idiots were staring at his conjured charms.

Unfortunately, moving star pictures were the most popular, so he had to actually look up at the skies, occasionally. He created constellations he vaguely remembered hearing about, growing up, the stories that surrounded them, making his  _minor illusions_  create the landscape of these stories in glowing colors.

A crowd favorite was Running/Waiting, and in every new town on his route he always made it out with a big gain on coins. He’s not sure when he heard this one, maybe from his good aunt, or maybe along the road somewhere. But Running/Waiting is a double constellation. 

The story goes that no matter how you flip it, it looks like two elves, one running away, one waiting to be found. Taako has flipped, turned, and twirled his constellation every direction, throwing sparks to the sky, created a moving picture of an elf always out of reach and an elf always reaching out.

Families are saps for the stories Taako creates around that sort of picture, telling a different variation in each place. Kids with big eyes reaching up to touch the “stars” and parents willing to indulge in spending a coin for making their kids quiet for a minute (and getting a good show).

But whenever he ended a show on Running/Waiting, he always felt a headache come on. A fuzzy feeling crashing over his ears, and he’d usually fumble an easy sleight-of-hand check right at the finish line. 

At that point he takes the whole bag and runs, forgetting about the show and the pretense, hands in front of him. It’s a one man show, no one to wait on, no one to turn back for. He runs on and shoots a fireball behind him for good measure, running from the fuzzy feeling in his brain.

-

_**Lucretia forgot to erase the stars.** _

Perhaps what should have been the most obvious of corrections to make to her journals, and she missed it. Their work, their mission, it revolved around the planes, studying the skies, learning everything about their external environments. 

And yet, somehow, the stars had escaped her notice. 

On each plane they had been different. Each cycle a new sky to learn and memorize and guide by. A new map to chart, for Davenport. A new math to study, for Barry. A new story to learn, for Magnus. A new sky to ponder the nature of life, for Merle. A new adventure, for Lup and Taako. A new journal to fill, for her.

Most planes systems and stars had been erased from their memories. But their home plane? It had been so long, it had seemed so insignificant compared to the magnitude of things to be remembered and edited from memory, that it slipped her quadruple checking. 

So far, no harm, she hopes. 

Watching Merle out on the lawn of the dome, one arm pointed up at the sky, trying to follow a pattern that isn’t there before rubbing his eyes.

Coming upon Magnus on the floor of the training dome, red-eyed and broken, sobbing apologies to  _Julia_ , asking her if she’d seen Hammer’s Flower that night.

Seeing Taako practice his cantrips with Angus, producing a  _minor illusion_  and the first thing that comes to mind is Running/Waiting, watching Taako’s expression cloud and turn more closed off than usual, shutting down Angus’ questioning head tilt and briskly moving onto  _mage hand_.

Lucretia forgot to erase the stars, but now, seeing what she has of her family, she can’t bear to erase this last thing. She’s so close, it’ll only have to not make sense a little while longer–

And if each of those times, she cast a calming spell or turned a blind eye to the damage in her cafeteria. Well, only the stars were a witness to her. And they weren’t going to tell.

**Author's Note:**

> I might edit and re-work Magnus' section later. I feel like it reads weird. 
> 
> Thanks for reading! The first thing I managed to churn out that wasn't Johnchurch, haha. 
> 
> Comments/Kudos appreciated :D


End file.
